Samsung netbooks, laptops to invade US shores in 2009

Samsung has a strong presence in the US electronics market, and is a major …

Samsung is a major player in the US home electronics market, as well as the world's largest memory supplier and second-largest handset manufacturer, but the company has set its sights on a new, ambitious goal. Beginning in 2009, Samsung will partner with an as-yet undisclosed retailer, and begin offering a range of notebook and netbook systems in the US. To date, Samsung's PC division has yet to gain much of a toehold in the US PC market (the Q1 UMPC comes to mind), focusing instead on a relatively narrow group of international markets, including China, Germany, Hong Kong, Russia, the UK, and the Ukraine.

"We don't want to remain a big fish in a small pond. We want to get a bigger presence, and the US market represents about 27 percent [of demand], so if we want to grow we have to tackle the US market," Kyu Uhm, vice president of Samsung's computer systems division, told the Wall Street Journal (subscription).

This move plays to Samsung's strengths in a number of ways: the company's US supply lines are well established, the Samsung brand has a strong presence here, and the corporations other product divisions do quite a bit of business here. The company's goal, according to the WSJ, is to introduce a class of premium US products that will carry higher margins than the ultra low-cost systems Samsung currently sells in emerging markets like China or Russia. This will include the X360 and X460 13.3" and 14.1" notebooks, as well as the NC10. Expect notebooks to debut in the $900-$1,899 range, with netbooks starting at $499.

Kyu Uhm's use of the verb "tackle," however, is particularly apt—possibly more apt than he realized. The US may account for 27 percent of PC demand worldwide, but it's a highly mature and essentially saturated market. When Intel reported its second quarter results back in July, the company noted surprisingly strong growth in the notebook segment, but in the US, "surprisingly strong growth" denotes single-digit increases above the 1-2 percent mark. If the US market grows by, say, 5 percent, in other words, that's big news. If the Asia-Pacific markets or the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) only grew by 5 percent, it'd be considered calamitous. Point is, there's not a whole lot of room around here for a new competitor—Samsung will have to elbow the likes of Dell, HP, and oh—Apple—out of the way if it wants to make space for its own premium products.

There's no word yet on who Samsung's retail partner might be, but the company won't have an easy time of things here, either. Most of the machines that crowd the shelves of Wal-Mart or Best Buy are budget models designed to entice buyers as they wander around looking for horrifically overpriced cables, not premium PCs. A few really stylish Samsung models might draw interested gawkers, but translating those eyeballs into dollar signs is challenging, particularly given the uncertain condition of the current economy. And the nervous, pinched consumers of today may not have a very different outlook six months from now when Samsung products arrive.

Finally, of course, there's the jeans-wearing, turtleneck-clad elephant in the corner. If you intend to compete in the premium PC market in this country, you aren't really waging war against Dell, HP, or Lenovo, you're taking on Apple. The details of a Samsung versus Apple match-up could span an article in and of themselves, but rather than throwing meat to starving fanboy dogs, I'll just say this: Love it or hate it, Apple has a unique presence in the US market. Competing with Apple for the premium PC market, therefore, would require its own approach—something different, I think, than what Samsung might find advantageous when trying to steal market share from the likes of fellow mainstream competitors.

The current market situation and challenges Samsung faces aren't a reason not to enter the US market, but the company will have to be on its toes if it wants to make a sizable dent and maintain it over any length of time. Dell's rather disastrous 2007 is proof enough that any corporation—even one of the market leaders—can stumble, and the stakes are higher for a new player wanting to join the game.